


(and) it’s been an everlasting summer

by pennyofthewild



Category: Free!
Genre: Gen, Hiking, Hot Springs & Onsen, Introspection, M/M, a love affair with waterfalls, bus trips, cavity-inducing fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 01:19:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennyofthewild/pseuds/pennyofthewild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[“You can sleep in the bus,” Rin said, and made the excuse that, if they waited till morning, there would be Gou, and his mother to explain things to – and probably Makoto, by default, and he’d rather they avoid that kind of situation.]</p><p>Haruka's always known what Rin's thinking anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(and) it’s been an everlasting summer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fayolinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fayolinn/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, Fayolinn! 
> 
> I do hope you enjoy this (sorry it doesn't fit your prompt specifications more exactly; please forgive me and I hope you like it nonetheless).

 

In the end, they take a bus.

(Rin bought the tickets at the train station on his way into Iwatobi. It was nine o’ clock PM when he made it to Haruka’s house; most people were at home and in bed, and the village was nearly empty. It was so quiet Rin could hear the sound of the waves crashing onto the beach, in between the sound of the late-night birds chirping and his dull, almost obtrusive footfalls on the temple stairs.

There was a light burning in a downstairs window, and the door was unlocked, so Rin left his shoes on the welcome mat and stepped over the threshold, calling out a quiet, “ _tadaima_ ,” as he entered the house.

Haruka had appeared in the doorway of the living room, still in his day-clothes – a rumpled white t-shirt with a hideous Iwatobi-chan on the lapel and jeans. His eyes were bloodshot, and Rin could tell he was trying to suppress a yawn.

“You can sleep in the bus,” Rin said, and made the excuse that, if they waited till morning, there would be Gou, and his mother to explain things to – and probably Makoto, by default, and he’d rather they avoid that kind of situation.

It helped, Rin thinks, that Haruka was too tired to argue.)

Rin is sitting by the window, now, duffel bag wedged between his knees. Haruka is next to him, in the aisle seat, arms crossed over his chest. His head is balanced on Rin’s shoulder, strands of prickly dark hair mashed up against Rin’s neck, breathing slow, and even, heat spreading across Rin from the point of contact: shoulder, arm chest. He is pretty sure that, by the time they arrive, he will be sticky with sweat. Rin shifts, extracting his arm from in between them and setting it, carefully, around Haruka’s shoulder instead. It is a more comfortable position for them both; this way, Rin’s arm won’t fall asleep, and Haruka will not wake up with a stiff neck.

Somewhere between leaving Iwatobi and getting onto the highway, the bus driver had turned the lights on. The setting is quite dim, bleak, even, but it is enough to turn the world outside the windows into a single, dark silhouette, leaf-like structures emerging from an almost homogenous black mass. Every once in a while a tree growing in the halo of a roadside lamp will snap into focus before falling away backward.

Haruka sighs in his sleep, leaning farther into Rin. The side of his face is pressed into Rin’s collar bone; Rin tightens his fingers around Haruka’s deltoid.

“D’you think,” Haruka mumbles, and Rin starts, before realizing Haruka is still asleep.

“Sssh,” he whispers, anyway, resting his cheek on the top of Haruka’s head.

“Rin,” Haruka says. His fingers curl into Rin’s shirt. “Rin.”

***

Warm early morning sunlight shafts through the crack in between the window frame and the shutters, playing across Rin’s face, making him scrunch his eyes against the brightness as he comes to. There is an awful, dry taste in his mouth; his throat feels like sandpaper and his lips are gummy, cracked. 

“Good morning,” Haruka’s voice says from somewhere above Rin, contrary to Rin’s expectations of finding himself wedged up against the window with a numb, red face. He is, instead, bent sideways at the waist (a less uncomfortable position, but not by much), draped over Haruka’s lap, nose buried in his arms, folded over Haruka’s knees.

“I’m still asleep,” Rin mutters, and it is certainly a tempting thought, one reinforced by the rolling movement of the bus, still moving forward, and Haruka’s fingers, cool against his temple, thumb splayed over the bone above his eyelid.

“Of course you are,” Haruka sounds faintly amused, almost mocking (but then again, that is how he often sounds, at least around Rin). Rin turns his head, stifling a yawn, so that he is looking Haruka in the face.

“What time is it?” Rin asks. The muscles of his waist – held awkwardly as they are, stretched taut across Rin’s twisted torso – dully protest. He can’t bring himself to sit up, preferring to ignore the pain in favor of appreciating the view of Haruka’s face, heavy-lidded blue eyes and half-smile, looking down at him, and the slight pressure of the smooth fingertips on his face.

“Seven,” Haruka says, “we’re almost there, I think.”

“I don’t suppose I could go back to sleep?”

Haruka seems to consider the question (which was actually more of a statement), a little crease between his eyebrows, mouth in a contemplative moue that makes Rin want to reach up and press his fingers against Haruka’s lips till it disappears. He’d follow it up, too, maybe, but he’s not sure he could _stop_.

“If I said no, you’d just go ahead and sleep again anyway, wouldn’t you?”

“Probably,” Rin tells him, turning his head to the side, letting his eyes close. “Don’t just dump me to the floor when it’s time to get off, okay? Wake me up.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Haruka says in a tone that states exactly the opposite. He’d blame Rin, of course, for the inspiration, later. Sometimes Rin thinks he’s quite capable of pushing Haruka off a cliff and laughing as he falls, all the way down.

He’s pretty sure it isn’t a very good idea though. He’d miss him too much, afterward.

***

It is raining, when they arrive at the _ryokan_ , soaked through from the ten-minute trek from the foot of the mountain up. The outdoor pool is out of the question, of course, but it is only ten o clock in the morning, and the trip is meant to be two nights and three days long and there’s an indoor pool, too, Rin knows, and a sauna; even if it rains all three days there will be plenty of things to do.

Their room is small, traditional: tatami mats on the floor, decorative paneled walls, the paper so thin it sounds as though it is raining inside. Haruka disappears into the bathroom, presumably for a shower (hot, Rin hopes); Rin, hoping to discourage a cold, peels off his sodden clothes, pulling a dry sweatshirt and jeans from the duffel bag.

In the process, Rin catches sight of his yukata, among the haphazard piles of Haruka’s t-shirts, his own trousers and other assorted articles of clothing and considers wearing it, for a brief moment (and then the shoji panels rattle, in a gust of wind, and Rin decides it is far too cold to).

Later, when he is warmer and (considerably) drier, Rin lies back on the futon and stares up at the ceiling, reveling in the luxury of idleness and the lack of important things to do: no work assignments, no training, no deadlines –

He hears the squeak of slippers on wet tiles and then the bathroom door opens, re-admitting Haruka into the room. He is toweling his hair off, Rin can see, water dripping from the ends of his hair and trailing down his throat, and his yukata is belted at the waist with the sort of precision and finesse Rin can only dream of attaining.

“Lying down again?” Haruka prods Rin in the ribs with his foot. “Are you sick?” He hasn’t bothered with securing his collar very tightly at all, lapels sliding away to expose a deep v of skin pale in the aftermath of a winter spent indoors.

“Saying I am – will that do me any favors?” Rin supplements this (ridiculous) inquiry with his best, charming grin. He concentrates on looking innocent and utterly guileless.

Haruka rolls his eyes. “No.”

“Aw; aren’t you worried about me at all?” Rin pouts. His eyes sparkle.

“If there really was something wrong with you,” Haruka is still standing over Rin, gaze fixed on Rin’s eyes, “you wouldn’t make a fuss at all.” He says this with complete neutrality, as if he doesn’t care to have an opinion about it; as far as he is concerned it is as much of a fact as is two twos are four.

As with most of Haruka’s strange, insightful declarations, Rin is left without words. Haruka turns away, setting his towel to dry. Rin’s location on the floor gives him an excellent view of Haruka’s ankles: delicate, slender.

“Come back over here,” Rin says, and props himself up on an elbow. Haruka blinks at him, but complies anyway coming to stand over Rin again. “No, down here,” Rin rolls his eyes, closes his fingers around Haruka’s sleeve and tugs insistently.

Haruka sighs, kneels, balancing on the balls of his feet and resting his elbows on his knees, wrists bare centimeters from Rin’s shoulder. He smells like shampoo, and water, which isn’t supposed to have a smell at all but does: cool and fresh and damp. Rin can see the sharp edge of his clavicle, and the valley behind it.

“What?”

Rin encircles one of Haruka’s wrists in his fingers. Presses a kiss to the center of Haruka’s palm. Frames Haruka’s face with his hands.

***

Later, Haruka will gripe they spent very little time at the actual hot springs during their stay. (They do, but not enough.)

There is a lot to do, Rin points out – hiking, for one; Haruka sulks the first two hours until the path, wooded with cypress and pine  - the air is thick with the smell of conifers –  opens out into some sort of natural gallery; ahead, across the expanse of a chasm, the adjacent mountain gives way to a cliff with a giant waterfall rushing over the brink. The roar of the water as it hits the river, some fifteen feet below, is nearly deafening.

Rin almost misses the point when Haruka, who was several paces behind him, walks past, headed for the narrow wooden fence marking the side of the trail. Rin watches him lean forward, set his elbows on top of the fence.

It is by no means a large waterfall; Rin has seen falls that would make this one look like a garden fountain, were they compared side by side – but there is something about this one, surrounded with tall, stately evergreens, a rebellious disrupter of the peace – and it is all the more beautiful for it:

Or, Rin thinks, with a wry smile, it could be that it is Haruka he is here with: Haruka, standing just out of reach, face turned up, as if to feel the spray against his skin, head thrown back, shoulders, too-often stiff, easy, relaxed. Rin can’t see his expression, but were he to guess, he’d say Haruka is smiling.

The leaves littering the trail crunch underfoot as he comes forward, standing beside Haruka and leaning just enough into him to remind him of his presence without being obtrusive. They stand in silence for several moments.

“Don’t,” Rin finally breaks the silence, “even think about jumping in.” He thinks adding, _you’ll break your neck_ and _then, where would I be?_ would be a little overkill.

He feels the smallest amount of pressure as Haruka , too, leans into him.

“Of course not,” Haruka says, although there is no _of course_ about it; Rin has spent much of their time together hauling and watching others haul Haruka out of various, highly inappropriate, collections of water.

“Why?” Rin asks before he’s thought; it isn’t the most sensitive way to phrase the question, but then, sometimes, his mouth just doesn’t seem to sync with his brain.

Haruka turns a little, so that he is facing Rin head on. Rin can feel Haruka’s breath – inhale, exhale – warm, even, on his face. His eyes are so very blue, Rin thinks – they almost make the sky look pale in comparison, as if Haruka’s eyes were the palette and the sky the painting.

“Because,” Haruka begins, and the roar of the waterfall, loud, imperious, is relegated to background noise, a faint thundering against Rin’s eardrums – white noise, easily tuned out but not fully ignored.

“Because,” he says, and smiles, reaching out to tuck a strand of Rin’s hair behind his ear, fingers lingering at Rin’s cheekbones, his jaw, his chin, “ – I’d break my neck, and then, where would you be?”

***

 

 

 

 

 

_end._

 

 


End file.
